bserve with
what persistence survives the conception that the initial action of the
series determines the character of events sequent in order. It is still a
universal practice to consecrate every baby by a rite not ecclesiastical.
The infant, on his first journey, must be taken to a height symbolic of
his future fortune, an elevation believed to secure the prosperity of his
whole subsequent career. It would be of interest to learn what analogies
the practice has among races in a primitive condition of culture. The
babe of the Pueblo of Sia, when on the fourth day (four being a sacred
number) for the first time he is taken from the dark chamber, is ritually
presented to his father the Sun; similarly, in a superstition of the
present series (I know not how generally observed) Sunday is said to be
the day on which the infant is first to be carried into the sunshine. It
is likely that such continuing customs represent feeble echoes of
pre-Christian dedicatory ceremonies, which in the first instance were
themselves founded on a corresponding habit of thought; according to an
opposite, yet connected system of notions, we find Protestant
Christianity still preserving a memento of the world-old and universal
belief in a crowd of malicious spirits, prepared at every moment to take
up their residence in the convenient shelter of the human frame, as a
hermit crab watches for a suitable shell in which to make his home. It
must be owned that the volume of observances connected with infancy, here
presented, is very inadequate; it is certain that a nurse of a century
ago would have been familiar with a vastly more extensive array of duties
and cautions. As we go back in time and culture, action becomes more
restricted. Where the effects of any line of conduct are unknown,
adherence to precedent is all-important; every part of the life must be
administered according to a complicated system of rules, while common
prudence is considered as inseparable from religious obligation.

The following section presents us with interesting material, in the
exhibition of ideas and customs which are maintained by children
themselves, and which they learn from one another rather than from their
elders. It is true that these are of necessity the reflection of the
conceptions and practice of older persons; but, according to the law of
their nature, it is found that children often exhibit a peculiar
conservatism, in virtue of which habits of thought stil